Printers lead. Help with identifying

[hunter74]

Could not be happier than with today's score. I got a call from my scrap dealer and he gave me a great deal on 800 kilos of printers lead. It's hard to find nowadays so i bought it all.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161104/365028c547225a4d2caa44fc549f4f6a.jpg

I need some help in identifying the different types of lead. It contains some spacers and big single letter blocks that I suspect to be monotype. But it's mostly small rods with one small letter. Here's a picture of these two types
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161104/e5fd398f9ba481fe5af588e21dfab3f4.jpg

I suspect the big letter blocks to be hardest of the two.

Can anyone give me an input on what kind of lead the small letter rods could be and maybe what hardness I could expect it to be?

On the first picture you also se one of the pigs as I understand it's called. I suspect it to be a linotype pig? It's hard because it has a hig ring to it when dropping it on the concrete floor in my garage. That also goes for the picture plates. What hardness can I expect it to be?

Some comments on this would be greatly appreciated! Identifying the lead would make it much easier for me when using it for alloying up my soft lead for normal pistol loads and magnum loads. I normally cast a bit on the soft side of 2/6/92 for conventional revolver loads with a BHN of approximately 12-14. I don't need more than one han 2% tin to get fillout.


Thanks!

[scottfire1957]

You will get many guesses, but no sure answers. We cannot tell content over the internet, or from pictures.

Surely in Norway, somebody can analyze that for you.

Hopefully that is a good score!

[ioon44]

http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm








Foundry Type 15% tin, 23% antimony, 62% lead,
Monotype - 9% tin, 19% antimony, 72% lead

From your pics you have mostly these alloys, you will need a lot of pure lead to mix to 6-2-92.

[runfiverun]

for the last hundred years we went with the 'pretty sure it's this method' and done just fine.

pull all of the bigger blocks with single letters out and melt it separate.
it's most likely mono-type and is lino-type at the worst.

the rest I'd put all together and figure it as lino-type with a lowered tin content. [probably 3%]
you'd have to have every piece there analyzed to know anything for 100% sure and ain't nobody gonna do that.
I'd just start looking for a metric buttload of soft lead to go with it.

[Oklahoma Rebel]

so that would be how much tin, I remember lino has 12% something, was that tin or antimony

[MaryB]

Single letters with the notch are likely foundry type, the ones with a hollow back monotype... but not always...

[Nick Quick]

What makes me wonder is how come in Europe there are still old printing shops around. With you having that stash on your hands means the shop went belly up or upgraded, but still hard to believe there are such things up for grabs nowadays.
Now ya have linotype for the rest of your days and your kids days.

[hunter74]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Guess I'll try a couple of different receipts and measure the harness and look out for bad fillout and rounded edges. If so add a little tin.

Soft lead is no problem but to come over a load like this is rear nowadays. I suspect the guy who had this before selling it to the scrap dealer, had it sitting in a barn somewhere for some time! It's many years since printing were done with these letters over here. According to the guy at the scrap yard he had more, so I left my phone number so I hope he'll call me next time 😁

Sent fra min SM-G900F via Tapatalk

[bumpo628]

Congrats on the nice score. That is a once in a lifetime find, I'd say.
You could try hitting the small and large pieces with a spring-loaded punch and compare the diameters of the indentations. Or you could try casting a boolet of each and putting them nose-to-nose in a vise to compare hardness. Those large pieces are likely the same alloy.

I'd treat it all as monotype unless you find out something that contradicts it.

[Vinne]

You lucky dog!! I'd feel great just to get a bucket full, but a truck full...WOW.

[lightman]

Thats a good score! It looks like you have several different kinds of type in there. I see part of a linotype pig, some mono, foundry, some spacers and maybe some linotype. It may have been remelted several times and some of the alloy depleted, but still a great haul. Now you need a load of pure to alloy with all of that type.

[LIMPINGJ]

I got a few hundred lbs of just spacers from a man cleaning out his father's small print shop. What type of alloy would these most likely be? Thanks.

[runfiverun]

spacers are kind of everything they can be lino-type or depleted lino or soft lead, they just held the letters and numbers apart.
if they were just bought from the maker and re-used as is over and over they could all be lino.
I bought a bunch of the spacers a while back and just mixed them with my ww alloy 3 parts ww to 1 part spacer and it makes some very nice boolits for my ar 15.
I don't know the composition of the final mix or what I started with and I don't care all I know is it works.

[RogerDat]

That long heavy bar with the flat bottom and rounded top foreground on the right is a linotype pig.
Just sort it by type, large and small.


Sort those thin letters from the heavy block letters.


On the larger blocks look for notch location on the larger letters. Makers used notches to distinguish different alloys, not standardized across industry but consistent from a given manufacturer.


Sort the spacers out. Heavy from thin flat stock. Check the heavy spacer bars with a magnet, some of them can be steel.


Your stash would fill about 4 barrels of 133 liter size (35 gallon) each should hold approx. 200 kilograms. Sorting into 19 liter buckets (5 gallon) you would fill 7 buckets per barrel BUT don't do that few, spread it out into more buckets. Especially with the small letters, full bucket that size are very heavy. 1/2 to 2/3 full buckets will stack 3 or 4 high and can still be moved and picked up.

Keep most of it in letter form, that form identifies what it is. Melted it could be anything, in letters it is clearly mono, foundry, or linotype (if there are strips of letters). Ok to melt spacers, and probably better, they will be a widely mixed bag of alloys. Might as well average those all out in big batches. Those may be as good or better alloy than some letters. Or not, so mix and average. You might even want to do big 50 kilo (~110 pounds) batches then cross mix ingots from each batch to make fully blended ingots.

Once you have it sorted into containers by general type then pull a sample pile from each letter or spacer type, make an ingot from each sample, get sample from that ingot tested and just assume the other buckets of that same type are same alloy. You won't really know what alloy every type and spacer is BUT if you can determine what a random few handfuls from your small type is, or large type, or different spacers are you will be close enough for most uses. The averaging is so you can get fairly consistent results.

I sorted in plastic tray with sides sitting on my lap. Bucket of mixed stuff from the barrel beside me and 4 or 5 buckets in front of me to sort them into. Big stuff and spacer out, then dump the small letters left in the tray into own bucket, repeat. Recall what I said about not over filling buckets? Because they get too heavy to move? Guess how I found that one out. Worked my way though about 400 kilos.

Don't forget you can probably trade 1 kilo of printers lead for at least 2 kilos of plain lead.

Lot of work sorting but I did it all with a big grin, I'm guessing that with 800 kilos to sort your face is going to hurt from smiling. Good job rescuing it from oblivion.

[scottfire1957]

Not saying anyway one is incorrect, but OP is in Norway, not the US. They "might" have done the printing things different over yonder.

I don't know, and ya'll don't either. Analysis is the answer, as nobody but I will say. ANYTHING else is simply a guess.

How many times has that alloy been recycled?

It's shameful that anybody can even venture a guess.

[RogerDat]

Mono and Foundry are not recycled the way linotype is with multiple re-melts before refreshing. The European have standard alloys same as we do here. The do have different grades of foundry and mono. Same as we do here, which is the reason for sorting by the notch locations for larger type. It is how different grades are marked. Small type too but it is way too big a PITA to try and sort that by notches. Not sure I would bother for big letters either. Betting a random 10# ingot of large letters would be fairly representative, as would 10# ingot of small letters, and 10# of each spacer types etc.

Note the UK and Swiss foundry & mono alloys have a lot of overlap.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_metal

The trick is to get it sorted in a reasonable manner so that a sample ingot of each sorted category of material can cast and then be tested to provide a decently known basis for making alloys from that sort category of metal. We are formulating cast bullets, not heart medication. As long as it is fairly consistent that is generally good enough.

With better than 1600 lbs. (800 kilos) you should have plenty time to work out what you have and how to use it, unless you shoot an awful lot.

[Grmps]

I'd separate them in like groups, smelt the groups and test the hardness of each group to get an idea what I'm dealing with